Racing Gets Off to Slow Start in Texas

When voters approved parimutuel wagering in a 1987 referendum, Texas seemed W destined to become a major league racing state.

Texas has resources that could make its thoroughbred racing as good as any in America. It already has a sizable breeding industry, one that ranks fourth in the country in the production of foals. Many Texans are enthusiastic horse bettors, and their patronage has been crucial to the success of Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., and Louisiana Downs in Shreveport. Texans own some of the most prominent and successful racing stables. And of course Texas has large population centers that could support top-level racing.

But when parimutuel racing became a reality in the state last week, it wasn’t at a grand facility in Houston or Dallas. The first thoroughbred racing was conducted in the town of Brady, population 5,976, best known as the home of the world championship barbecue goat cook-off. Brady is so rural that signs at the local motel advise patrons, “Do Not Clean Birds in the Room.”

The track in Brady is G. Rollie White Downs, and its first day of racing drew a crowd of 4,000 who wagered a meager $188,975. The crowd figure was an estimate because G. Rollie White Downs has no turnstiles to count the patrons. Nor does it have a clubhouse or a press box. Nor do the tents serving as the makeshift clubhouse and press box have any electricity, although this was viewed as a blessing by some patrons.

“The tents were ankle-deep in water,” said Randy Moss of the Arkansas Democrat, “so if we’d had electricity we’d probably be dead.”

The opening of G. Rollie White Downs might be viewed as a quaint and charming event if it were a sidelight to the development of racing in Texas. But this rinky-dink operation and others like it -- Trinity Meadows, La Bajia Downs -- will constitute all of Texas racing now and in the foreseeable future. Even in an industry accustomed to inept regulation by politicians, nobody has ever bungled a golden opportunity like the lawmakers in Texas.

Parimutuel wagering on horses used to be legal in Texas, but it was outlawed in 1937. For the next half century, people who wanted the sport legalized were thwarted by religious groups that decried gambling. “When you base the opposition to an issue on moral grounds, you’re going to generate a lot of strong feelings,” said Jeff Hooper, executive director of the Texas Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association. “A lot of people pictured racing as a heinous evil.”

However as the oil industry suffered and Texas’s economic fortunes declined in recent years, horse racing began to look less evil. The state was desperate for new sources of revenue, and the pro-racing forces could promote the sport as a potential source of much-needed tax money. In 1986 the legislature passed a bill that would govern the new racing industry provided that voters approved a statewide referendum. It passed the next year by a 57-to-43 margin.

But after the pro-racing people popped their champagne corks, they realized they were saddled with a racing bill that was unworkable. In fact some parts of it were utterly preposterous. The rules of Texas racing require that stewards at the state’s tracks must have previous law-enforcement experience. (If a winner is disqualified at G. Rollie White Diowns, bettors will surely be comforted to know that the steward making the decision was an ex-cop). The most important provision in the racing law gives the state 5 percent of all money wagered on races. The pro-racing forces had agreed to this figure-the third-highest in the nation-in order to make the legalization of betting look attractive to legislators and voters. Like many ardent suitors, they came to regret the promises they made in the heat of courtship. The 5 percent “take” has stymied the development of racing in Texas.

The pro-racing forces in Texas must make the same kinds of arguments to the legislature that track owners in Maryland, New Jersey and other states have done: Horse racing provides so many indirect economic benefits to a community’s economic well-being that a state should give up some of its tax revenue to make that industry healthy.

But many Texas legislators approved racing only because it would generate sizable tax revenue, and they may be reluctant to cede this revenue. In a state in which 43 percent of the citizens didn’t want racing at all, legislators will be reluctant to vote for anything that looks like a giveaway to gambling interests. Texans waited a half century for legalized racing, but they may have to wait many more years for big-league racing.